The problems arose during yesterday's final game of Group B between the two players, who each could progress to the playoffs with a win. The series went to a third map and when both players were around max supply with their armies they were about to engage when NightEnD suddenly experienced massive amounts of lag. His blink stalker army found itself being annihilated by Zenio's broodlords and broodlings. Effectively lag cost NightEnD his chance at winning the deciding game and thus the entire tournament.

Lag was a problem earlier in the day as both NaNiwa and Grubby made complaints about its effect on their games. NaNiwa even initially forfeited all his remaining games, only to be talked into playing them out. The Swede ended up placing first in Group A. Grubby filed an official protest about the lag and went on to lose all of his games.

IEM Product Manager Carmac published a response on reddit and TeamLiquid to the initial lag problems.